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Pretzel logic on guns
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Pretzel logic on guns
The basic contortion of the Bush administration is to remain hard-line conservative while appearing to be compassionate and progressive.
As a result, the President and his associates tie themselves in knots.
Republicans want Bill Clinton to be remembered for a semen-stained dress. But the enduring symbol of the Bush administration should be a pretzel.
No better example can be cited than Attorney General John Ashcroft's awkward bending and reaching on the issue of guns.
He is, of course, a fierce ad-vocate of gun owners' rights. He works for a president who took office with the National Rifle Association cheering and waving, even though Mr. Bush claimed to want background checks at gun shows, factoryinstalled child safety locks and an older age for gun ownership. They knew where his heart (and their money) was.
Since the election, Mr. Ashcroft and his boss have had it both ways. They claim to follow a sensible, moderate policy on guns, but they do nothing about issues like background checks, trigger locks and ownership age.
So devoted are Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Bush to the pro-gun agenda that the Justice Department proposes to get rid of background check records after one day, instead of the usual three months.
The Attorney General also reversed longstanding federal policy by endorsing the notion that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own guns, not just a right for those serving in a ''well-regulated militia.''
Further, Mr. Ashcroft told Congress that, even in the aftermath of 9/11 and his denial of detainees' normal rights, he stood by a mind-boggling policy forbidding the FBI access to files that would reveal gun purchases by any of the 1,200 people who were rounded up.
So the NRA has got its money's worth. But what about the promise to voters who want a moderate, independent approach to guns? What about the promise, after 9/11, to do everything possible in pursuit of terrorists? What about the idea that we should use every means to get tough on crime? What about candidate Bush's supposed enthusiasm for ''enforcing the gun laws already on the books''?
Criminal defendants all over the country have rushed to federal court, asking judges to dismiss the gun charges they face, citing the historic BushAshcroft turnabout on the Second Amendment.
How, for example, can federal prosecutors enforce the essentially total gun ban in Washington, D.C., if the BushAshcroft position on the Second Amendment is right?
As Columbia University legal expert Michael Dorf said, ''Ashcroft is trying to please two different constituencies. On the one hand, there is the gun lobby, which is very pleased with his decision. On the other hand, he has to consider federal prosecutors and probably the general public as well.''
Some of those prosecutors, right here in Kentucky, have been working with local officials in Project Backfire to use federal gun laws to confront criminals with maximum prison time, and it's working. The result has been longer prison terms for those who use guns to traffic drugs, rob convenient stores and commit other crimes.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Bush bend gun laws into a constitutional pretzel.
Pretzel logic might be a good name for a rock album, but it's not the right approach to federal gun policy.
http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/ed081102s256107.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
The basic contortion of the Bush administration is to remain hard-line conservative while appearing to be compassionate and progressive.
As a result, the President and his associates tie themselves in knots.
Republicans want Bill Clinton to be remembered for a semen-stained dress. But the enduring symbol of the Bush administration should be a pretzel.
No better example can be cited than Attorney General John Ashcroft's awkward bending and reaching on the issue of guns.
He is, of course, a fierce ad-vocate of gun owners' rights. He works for a president who took office with the National Rifle Association cheering and waving, even though Mr. Bush claimed to want background checks at gun shows, factoryinstalled child safety locks and an older age for gun ownership. They knew where his heart (and their money) was.
Since the election, Mr. Ashcroft and his boss have had it both ways. They claim to follow a sensible, moderate policy on guns, but they do nothing about issues like background checks, trigger locks and ownership age.
So devoted are Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Bush to the pro-gun agenda that the Justice Department proposes to get rid of background check records after one day, instead of the usual three months.
The Attorney General also reversed longstanding federal policy by endorsing the notion that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own guns, not just a right for those serving in a ''well-regulated militia.''
Further, Mr. Ashcroft told Congress that, even in the aftermath of 9/11 and his denial of detainees' normal rights, he stood by a mind-boggling policy forbidding the FBI access to files that would reveal gun purchases by any of the 1,200 people who were rounded up.
So the NRA has got its money's worth. But what about the promise to voters who want a moderate, independent approach to guns? What about the promise, after 9/11, to do everything possible in pursuit of terrorists? What about the idea that we should use every means to get tough on crime? What about candidate Bush's supposed enthusiasm for ''enforcing the gun laws already on the books''?
Criminal defendants all over the country have rushed to federal court, asking judges to dismiss the gun charges they face, citing the historic BushAshcroft turnabout on the Second Amendment.
How, for example, can federal prosecutors enforce the essentially total gun ban in Washington, D.C., if the BushAshcroft position on the Second Amendment is right?
As Columbia University legal expert Michael Dorf said, ''Ashcroft is trying to please two different constituencies. On the one hand, there is the gun lobby, which is very pleased with his decision. On the other hand, he has to consider federal prosecutors and probably the general public as well.''
Some of those prosecutors, right here in Kentucky, have been working with local officials in Project Backfire to use federal gun laws to confront criminals with maximum prison time, and it's working. The result has been longer prison terms for those who use guns to traffic drugs, rob convenient stores and commit other crimes.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Bush bend gun laws into a constitutional pretzel.
Pretzel logic might be a good name for a rock album, but it's not the right approach to federal gun policy.
http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/ed081102s256107.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878